DETROIT — A peek into the kinds of scenarios the injury-ravaged Rangers contemplate these days:

The next time around, do the Rangers go with the right-hander who got hit hard Friday or the left-hander who got hit hard, literally and figuratively, back in April?

Decisions. Decisions.

On Friday, Scott Baker became the 10th different pitcher to start for the Rangers this season, and Detroit hit him like you expect a 10th starter to get hit in a 7-2 win. He allowed eight hits — five for extra bases — and none of them could be considered bloopers.

He failed to execute a shutdown inning after the Rangers gave him an early lead, spent entire innings pitching from the stretch because of a penchant for allowing the leadoff hitter to reach and surrendered the first career homer to No. 9 hitter Austin Romine with two outs in the sixth.

“Ultimately, it’s about pitch execution and, for the most part, the balls they hit were not well-executed pitches,” said Baker, who missed most of the 2012 and 2013 seasons recovering from Tommy John surgery.

“They were very aggressive early in the count. I threw some get-me-over pitches. I’d like to have them back. For most of the game, I was just trying to do damage control. It’s just not ideal.”

The Rangers’ other choice for the spot, which comes up again Wednesday at Minnesota, is Joe Saunders, who has been on the DL since April 5 after allowing six hits and five runs in 32/3 innings in his only start before getting hit in the left ankle. The line drive caused a stress fracture.

Saunders has since made four rehab starts, including seven innings of one-run ball at Triple-A Round Rock earlier this week, and has already said he doesn’t see what can be accomplished with another rehab start.

The plain facts are these: Since the start of 2013, Saunders has allowed an opponents’ batting average of .312 and an OBP of .367, which both rank last among the 107 pitchers to make at least 30 starts.

“For the lineup he had to go through, I thought he did a good job,” Washington said. “If we could have done more against [Detroit starter Anibal] Sanchez, it might have been a different story. He elevated some pitches, and we couldn’t do anything against Sanchez.”

What Baker does, by nature, is elevate pitches. He often pitches at the top of the strike zone. So, while he throws a lot of strikes, he also is prone to giving up lots of fly balls, which can be a dangerous business in the American League.

Over his career, only 34.4 percent of the balls put in play against him were ground balls. It ranks 99th among 104 pitchers who have at least 900 career innings since 2005.

“It’s what he is, he pitches in the upper part of the zone, and tonight it just didn’t happen,” Washington said.

That’s what happened in the Detroit second inning, immediately after the Rangers had given Baker a 2-0 lead. After allowing his only unintentional walk of the evening to Victor Martinez, who entered the game as the AL’s leading hitter, Baker got Torii Hunter to fly to right field for an out, then got a fly ball from Denton’s Austin Jackson that carried into the left-field bullpen to tie the score.

In the third, an elevated fastball drifted back toward the outer third of the plate, and former Ranger Ian Kinsler lined it to right for the first of his three doubles. Miguel Cabrera followed with another double to right when a sinker couldn’t get all the way to the bottom of the zone. The Rangers never challenged after that.

All that was left was to start the decision-making process about the next start.

“We will talk about it,” Washington said just before meeting with pitching coach Mike Maddux. “We’ll have a decision Saturday.”

In the Rangers’ situation, it may actually be best to put off for tomorrow what you could do today.

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